The Spelling Bee/Transcript
WORK IN PROGRESS; NEEDS HUMAN REVIEW You know, once in a while it's nice to dip into the past to find something useful for the present. Like, for example, this mood ring. Remember these from the '60s? No? Do you remember anything from the '60s? See, there's some kind of weird chemical on here that makes it change colour with the mood of the person who's wearing it. Came in real handy when you were on a date -- kinda gave you a signal when to make your move. But after you get married, you need more of a distant early warning system. So I taped a bunch of these mood rings to a doorknob on the front of my house. See, the doorknob is brass, so it actually conducts the mood from inside the house. That way, when I get home, I can get a sense of what kind of mood my wife's in without even having to step through the door. See, the colour tells me whether I need to get any flowers chocolates -- or a a place to stay. [ cheers and applause ] thank you very much. I appreciate that. I got this invitation from the government for the town of possum lake. They're going to have a spelling contest with $1,000 first prize. It's part of a big plan to smarten us all up. Apparently they had some survey, and and the average canadian is stupider than ever. I tell you, though. These politicians better be careful. If we get too smart, none of 'em will get elected. Good morning. G-o-o-d-m-o-r-n-I-n-g. I'm sorry, harold. That's incorrect. It's 3:15. I just -- it's a spelling exercise. I wanna be the spelling rep for the town. You know, for the big spelling bee. Yeah, so I'm using a dictionary to practise. Well, you have to earn that job. See the rules here? You gotta have an open competition with at least three people in it. And the winner of that represents the town. Yeah, that's okay. I'm fine with that, because I am a very good speller. Are you a good speller? I don't really know. You know, my handwriting is so bad, I've never been able to tell. Well, I'm a very good speller. You could pick any word out of this dictionary, and I could spell it. Go ahead. Pick any word. Pick a word. Pick a word. Pick a word. Pick a word. Pick a word. All right! I'll pick a word! "obnoxious." o-b-n-o -- no! H-a-r-o-l-d. And look. Look. Look. There's a picture of you. It's time for the possum lodge word game! [ cheers and applause ] today's prize is a coupon for a free session at the house of hammers and phrenology... "where we give you a bump on the head, "then read it." okay, harold, cover your ears. Okay, red, you've got 30 seconds to get harold to say this word... All right, winston. And... Go! All right, harold, this is something that you've gotta have if you wanna go parking on lover's lane. A girl. No, no, okay. No, no. But this is something that you need to attract girls. Oh! Fluency in klingon. Yeah! Yeah! No. No. Okay, this is something you don't ever want to have an accident in. A rented tux. Oh! Okay. Boy. Most of us at the lodge have these, okay. Winston's is a hemi; dalton's is a hatchback; mine's about 15 years old. Bad haircuts. [ miffed ] almost out of time, red. I know. I know. I know. Okay, harold, this is something that will take you anywhere you wanna go, at any speed, day or night. A t-1 high-speed wireless connection! What?! Oh, yeah, yeah. Oh, it's great for shopping on the internet. That's where I bought my cargo pants. There we go! This is the repair shop part of the show we call if it ain't broke, you're not trying. Joining me today is local water taxi operator, hap shaughnessy. You got a pair of boxing gloves there, hap? Yeah, I'm in training. Thinking about going back in the ring again. But my old gloves are coming apart at the seams. Well, they're in good company. I didn't know you were a boxer, hap. Oh, I didn't fight under the name hap. Back then, I was kid unbelievable. It was 1964. I was makin' ends meet by working as a limo driver in new york city. It was my job to drive a young sonny liston to his fateful bout with cassius clay at madison square garden. My grandfather built that place with his bare hands. One at a time, now, hap, c'mon. Anyway, liston and I got into a squabble about the validity of my quantum physics theorem. And the next thing I know, the car is pulled over and liston and I are throwing punches at each other in an alley off 47th street. I led with a right, he crossed with a left, and the suddenly, bam! Tremendous blow to the head. Well, you know, that explains so much. No, not me! Liston. Went down like a sack of hammers. Right there at that moment, I was the champ. I got nothing for it. Anyway, I folded sonny up, threw him in the limo, took him to the fight, and the rest is history. Yep, well, your boxing gloves are all done there, hap. I think you'll find they're as good as new. Yeah, great. Great. Thanks, red. All right, no problem. I sure hope the boxing commission grants me my license. You know, it's a part of my life I wanna get back. I feel the same way about this conversation. A lot of people have these ceiling fans in their houses. They're supposed to help with the air movement so that instead of your house having a couple of cold spots, it's cold all over. I don't really like the ceiling fans all that much. At the low speed they cool off your soup, and at the high speed they blow your toupee right into it. Mind you, they are handy for slicing fruit. But I believe I have a better use for ceiling fans. See, instead of using of using energy, my idea has these ceiling fans saving energy. Now, some of you may already be ahead of me on this. That just means you probably shouldn't be watching my show. I believe lawrence welk is on. So what I'm gonna do is mount these ceiling fans onto this car, one on each corner, see, and then as they spin around, that's gonna give me lift. Lift is very important, as any woman will tell you. But in this case, see, the lift is actually gonna reduce the weight of this pig by about 1,000 pounds. Gonna give it the same gas mileage as those little puddle jumpers they sell the old ladies and college professors. Now we just need some way to spin the ceiling fans. You can't just plug them in and drive away. I mean, even if you did have a long enough extension cord, you'd have to worry about pedestrians and lift bridges, and you'd always have to come back the same way you went. So instead, we're just gonna take the wheels of this baby carriage. Shouldn't be too tough. If you have my kind of medical history, the wheels fell off your baby carriage years ago. Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh, it's a doll. [ doll squeaks ] now here's where the real genius comes in... No, I'm wrong. Okay, I'm gonna use the car itself to power these fans. See, I'm gonna mount a ceiling fan over each of the wheel wells, and then when the carriage wheel rubs up against the tire, that'll make the fan spin. Even on the front wheel. And even though it turns like that, still the centre of the top stays in the same place. How brilliant is that? You know, no wonder my parents questioned why I found grade 7 so hard... Every year. The only other tricky part is you gotta take a look at the angle of the fan blades, make sure you mount them on the right side of the car. Because one side's gonna go one way, and the other side's gonna go the other way. And if you do it wrong, the fans'll push down instead of lift, and that's gonna kill your gas mileage. It'll be like driving around with moose thompson on your roof rack. [ muttering ] I think we're good to go here. And this is way better than the e.P.A. Solutions to gas mileage. They just want you to go slow. Heck, that's what walking's for. With my system, the faster you go, the faster the fans go, the lighter the car gets, the better gas mileage you get. I don't see a down side, do you? Let's take her for a spin. Heck, let's take her for four spins. So remember: If the women don't find you handsome, they should at least find you handy. [ starts ignition ] oh, here's another bonus... Hitch-hikers won't come near you. [ applause ] I think I have a sensible explanation as to why men do so many crazy things. Now, I don't care what species you look at, the male is forced to attract the female's attention... Peacocks spread their tails; rams butt heads; men drive monster trucks. Now, I know when you see a guy peel away from the stop light or crush beer cans with his forehead, most women just roll their eyes. But the truth is men are programmed to choose behaviour that doesn't interfere with mating. Do you know what that means? That means that somewhere there are other women that are actually impressed with male stupidity. We call these women girlfriends. Then later, when they come to their senses and see the idiotic behaviour for what it really is, we call them wives. So whenever you see a guy belching the national anthem while he accompanies himself with an armpit, wish him luck. He's either not married or about to be that way. Remember, I'm pullin' for you. We're all in this together. [ applause ] I'm on my way. Rothschilds sewage... When you can't take it anymore, we'll come over and take it for you. [ applause ] we're not quite ready to fill out the entry form yet, but we thought we'd have a little trial run between harold and dalton there. You might wanna check the spelling on the -- what? What? All right, harold, you ready for your first word? Okay... Uh... Let's see... "indices." "indices," I-n-d... [ chain saw buzzing ] I-n-d-I-c-e-s. Wasn't really asking you, mike. What? What's your guess, harold? What he said. Okay, dalton, "quadrennial," "quadrennial." what does that mean? Something that only happens every four years. Oh, like ann marie getting romantic. No, no, it's more like the olympics. Ha! You don't know ann marie! All right, just take your guess, will you, dalton. Okay, okay, q-u-a... [ chain saw buzzing ] mike: Q-u-a-d-r-e-n-n-I-a-l. Mike, do you mind? Oh! Oh! Sorry, dalton. I don't know what came over me. Well, it's the chain saw, the sound of the chain saw. Every time he hears it, he goes into that trance and starts spelling. Well, why would that be, harold? Oh, I know! It was a cellmate I had in jail who used to punch me every time I spelled my graffiti wrong. Chain saw morgan. Oh, so you learned to show a little r-e-s-p-e-c-t. I found out what it means to me. Sock it to me. Sock it to me. Sock it to me. Sock it to me. Sock it to me. Red: We were putting a little campfire tent thing together out behind the lodge. Walter was bringing the cooler, and we were -- watch yourself there. Oh, I guess there wasn't much -- okay. Okay. You know, well, you've got to be responsible for yourself, walter. You've gotta watch -- no, no, no, no. No need for temper now. You're not hurt. You're fine. So bill and I are trying to get the tent together, and walter's trying to clean things up -- and okay -- okay. Now, that probably hurt. Okay, that's probably -- but again, you gotta always -- when you're camping, for you youngsters out there, you gotta watch what the other guy's doin', you know. Like, don't do this, for example. And we didn't know what was pullin' on -- again... See, that way lies madness. So we got the tent up, and bill's gonna get the campfire goin'. And we're gonna split a log, so he's gotten -- just gonna -- just hit it, walter. Hit it, walter. Walter, walter, walter -- while we're young, hit the log. And you know, this happens sometimes. You get a green log or what have you. Or maybe the axe isn't wide enough at the one end -- bill's gonna get the campf -- not -- no, don't use all the matches, bill. Yeah. All right, so meanwhile -- no, see, a second axe into the -- roughly into the same split will just open that baby right up. Just hit it, walter. Hit it. Hit it. Hit it now! Walter, hit it now. Okay, I was wrong. Okay. Okay. No, uh, hmm. Yeah, well, let's try -- by this point we tried a few axes. And unbelievable that a log would take that much -- there must've been lots of knots in that. I got an idea, though. Let's flip her over. Just flip her over. Meanwhile, bill is going back to the old style of lighting a fire, with a string -- and I don't know what they call this, but it's nothin' good. All right that should -- that should -- no! Boy! Unbelievable, isn't it? Boy, oh, boy, we're gonna run outta axes here. We got the double ender. What we used to call it when we were younger. Oh! Hmm. Okay. Okay. Okay. So now bill's starting to get some smoke. He's getting some heat going. Yeah, take her up a notch there, bill. Actually runnin' out of spaces to put an axe into the log. So... Yeah. I got another idea. I think that -- oh, and it's on fire, bill. It's on fire. Get her -- okay, now just move the camp -- yeah, move the campfire over to where the fire is. There you go. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Don't blow too hard. Easy. Easy. Oh, boy. Oh, boy. Oh, boy. So I figure if we use a just a hatchet, just in the right spot, we still got room for that. Now, walter's not good at taking direction. And he just misinterpreted my instructions. No. Like, how is that helping? I don't -- I don't understand that. Meanwhile, bill's -- he's got enough of it stamped out. He's all set and he's ready to bring the -- to bring the log over, but... Okay, you know what? I got an idea. Okay, and we're all -- don't watch bill eat. Don't watch -- not if you're eating at all yourself. If you can't use the log to burn, use it as a holder. [ applause ] you know, men have always had hobbies, like fishing or building things or just winging acorns at squirrels. Unfortunately, men have also had chores. Like cleaning out the eavestroughs. The difference is hobbies are fun, chores are work. Now, on the surface it may be hard to tell 'em apart. What's the difference, you might say, between collecting screws in a jar and picking up your laundry and putting it your hamper? Or what's the difference between polishing your car and polishing your silverware? Simple: One is a job, the other one is a hobby. The trick is to be able to combine the two. And I'm a tricky guy. Here we have a hobby -- this model train -- and a job to do -- clean out those eavestroughs. See, I've attached a snowplough onto the front of the train. It gets to do all the work, I get to have all the fun. You get to watch. [ train whistle blowing ] well, we're almost ready to fill out our entry form. We've got mike and dalton from the lodge and then the town is sending up some lame entrant, sam something or other so that we'll have three, and that'll make it legal. And, uh, we're gonna help mike out a little bit. We've got harold outside with the chain saw. He's gonna rev it up, you know, just at the right moment. You all good to go there, harold? Vroom vroom vroom, uncle red! Okay, let's get started! I'm ready to s-p-e-l. Had my alpha-bits for breakfast. Yeah, we just gotta wait for the token entrant from town there. [ car door slams ] sam something or other -- that's probably him right now. Audience: Ohhhh! Hello, there. Um, we'd like four boxes of cookies if you'll take a cheque. I'm sam. I'm here for the spelling contest. This is sam. You know, we have some pretty big words in this thing. That's okay. I'll help you pronounce them. [ laughter ] all right, well, uh -- all right, I guess we're ready to go. Are we ready to go? All right, well, ladies first, eh? "rhythm." r-h-y-t-h-m. Ha! Ha! Yeah, right. [ bell ringing ] yeah, right. Okay, dalton, your word is... "tchotchke." I give up. Well, that's a little embarrassing, isn't it? Not nearly as embarrassing as it would've been. All right, mike, "tchotchke." tchotchke? [ chain saw buzzing ] t-c-h-o-t-c-h-k-e. [ bell ringing ] yes, sir! We're all tied up. All right... Mike, you go first this time. Okay. Your word is... "piccalilli." well, uh, we didn't use the word piccalilli in prison. Oh, man. Time's up! "piccalilli," p-I-c-c-a-l-I-l-l-I. Ahhhh. [ applause ] I win. Gotta go. [ possum squealing ] oh, it's meeting time, m-e-a-t -- red: No, no, no. Away you go. I'll be down in a minute. Well, if my wife is watchin', I'll be comin' straight home after the meeting. A real tense day, and I'm hopin' for a little relief, and I don't spell it r-o-l-a-I-d. Okay, and to the rest of you, thanks for watchin'. On behalf of myself and harold and the whole gang up here at possum lodge, keep your stick on the ice. [ cheers and applause ] sit down. Everybody, sit down. Take your place. Sit down. Sit down. All rise! Quando omni flunkus moritati. Red: Sit down. All right, men, bow your heads for the man's prayer. I'm a man, but I can change, if I have to, I guess. Okay, men, we're out of the running for the spelling bee and $1,000 prize. So I was lookin' in the lodge cash box, and I was just wondering, how many of you know how to spell, I.O.U.? Okay, and how many of you know what it means? That's what I thought. Closed captioning performed by intercaption canada www.Intercaption.Com